


Fire from the Tongues of Liars

by Webtrinsic



Series: The Fantastic Four's MCU Origin, with lots of Johnny whump (S.1) [3]
Category: Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four (2015), Fantastic Four (Comicverse), Fantastic Four (Movies 2005-2007), Fantastic Four (Ultimateverse), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Blood and Torture, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Family Bonding, Family Dinners, Father-Son Relationship, Fear, Hurt Johnny Storm, Insecurity, Introspection, Kidnapping, Mother-Son Relationship, Protective Siblings, Protectiveness, Psychological Torture, Pyromania, Pyromaniac Johnny Storm, Sibling Love, Team as Family, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:49:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24473818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: The Fantastic Three comes out to the world as the Fantastic Four, and Johnny finds himself face to face with the mysterious Victor Von Doom.
Relationships: Ben Grimm & Reed Richards & Johnny Storm & Susan Storm, Reed Richards/Susan Storm (Fantastic Four)
Series: The Fantastic Four's MCU Origin, with lots of Johnny whump (S.1) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665754
Comments: 7
Kudos: 23





	Fire from the Tongues of Liars

**Author's Note:**

> :3 I love where this series is going

His black out curtains couldn’t have arrived at a better time. Ever since the second visual disturbance to the tower, the media had been in a frenzy. Johnny often was forced to ignore reporters waiting outside the front door and helicopters circling, few bold enough to even try landing on the newly refurbished helipad.

Ben normally handled that by going and sitting in the dead center, flipping off whichever patsy who’d been told by their boss to get the news on the new owners of what was once Avengers tower. The teen was surprised with the explosion and an honest to god robot attack no one suspected them to be the Fantastic Three. Susan and Reed didn’t even wear masks for god sakes!

Johnny wouldn’t consider himself to be the smartest of people, and living with Reed had furthered his own outlook on his intellect. But  _ both _ Reed and Susan were well known regardless; someone not recognizing them didn’t make sense because even he’d have noticed if he hadn’t known who they were already.

His sister was a legitimate actress. If he was channel surfacing he’d scroll past her face at least once out of every ten channels. Reed was a certified genius with conferences he’d attended and awards he’d accepted, his face in science journals and on university walls. 

Johnny could even remember the time he’d had a substitute in middle school science class who’d been absolutely horrified when no one in the class knew who Reed was. The guy had been happy when he’d raised his hand but was soon disappointed because just because he knew Reed didn’t mean he had any prowess or interest in the subject they were talking about. Luckily the man’s disappointment had faded when he’d explained they were related but that’d only brought more awkwardness when the man decided to follow him out to the car when he found out Reed was the one picking him up.

It wasn’t as if it was a secret who now owned the place either, if even the most uninformed kids he went to school with knew, then someone with actual intelligence had to have figured it out by now.

At the moment the media seemed to be under the impression that the tower was being attacked by villians who’d awoken and had failed to realize the heroes they were looking for weren’t there anymore. Another stupid thought because everyone knew the Avengers had moved out and to a specially built facility years ago.

Other reporters thought it was people defying against what the Avengers and Tony Stark once were. Extremist and conspiracy theorists screamed that the building was a prime target for terrorist attacks and that had been the cause of the damages.

Undisturbed by the kooks, Johnny couldn’t shake his concern over those who he went to school with. Although not the smartest, like him, they were perceptive. He had yet to go out with the Fantastic Three, his abilities needing more honing than the rest of them before he could go fight crime.  He’d taken to saying ‘Flame on’ when transforming since in a funny and odd encouraging way, it helped him focus on igniting himself. When that didn’t work he utilized one of his many matches.

Everett, and Mrs. Magladale had gotten into the habit of buying them for him, telling him when they saw the more elaborate designs painted or printed on the cardboard they were helpless not to pick it up for him.  The sleeves he kept in an altoid tin out of harm's way, few had small burn marks from where he’d held them by the corner to save the design but the more he learned how to harness the boiling in his gut, the ones on top had no scotch marks at all.

Johnny looked at himself in the mirror, blue hugging his skin to the point he couldn’t even see the seam around his throat. His head an off colored extension of the blue uniform that’d eventually become him. Someone would recognize him, even if it was only Mrs. Magladale, someone would know it was him Johnny Storm fighting crime.

He guessed the identity part didn’t matter much because if Reed didn’t care and neither did his sister, were their identities even secret? They’d been getting by on luck alone, something Johnny knew Reed hated.  Luck wasn’t something the man relied on, luck brought back the anxious and awkward reservations that his sister had been slowly coaxing him out of. Luck was as invisible to him as Sue was when she disappeared.

There and not all at the same time. Its absence from his fingertips made it untrustworthy and out of reach. A fool's excuse for odds that'd be in their favor by set circumstances that the mind deemed correlation for no reason at all other than the illusion of significance.

Significance varied in the eyes of the team when pertaining to their character, as much as Reed wanted to claim otherwise they all knew. His intellect pushed him away from others, seeing what others couldn’t gave him an ego. He wouldn’t outwardly gloat but it did remain there when making his judgments. 

Susan’s significance came from others, that or it was for others. Raising him when their parents had died, pursuing a career in acting when she had the intellect for much more. She was a beautiful girl who made a name for herself while still feeling the need to implant herself in the lives of others so they could see it too.

Her significance was her attachments and connections with others, she was doing a good job at it too. She was his whole world.

In Ben it was feeling, not emotions but rather sensations. The thrilling whiplash of physicality and stomach dropping situations. The crash of bodies in a game of football, the spin out of a plane, and the crunching of the ground underneath him as he walked. The feeling of being alive.

Johnny could believe in some way he didn’t have any, he hadn’t done anything great. That wasn’t an excuse or a way of tearing himself down, he was sixteen and hadn’t had the opportunity to find significance in himself until now. If someone did push for an answer though, his steadiest response was the ethereal beauty of dancing flames and a smoke filled sky, nothing more and nothing less.

“You know it pains me more than anything to say that the uniform suits you,” His sister's voice was accompanied by a soft knock as she poked her head in from the doorway. 

“I know,” Turning to face her rather than her reflection in the mirror, the teen smiled confidently.

“When do you think the four of us will have to suit up?”

“You eager to show the world the Fantastic Three is actually the Fantastic Four?” Sue jested not knowing how much he really did want to finally tell the world there was another. 

“People may not know it yet but they’re trembling in anticipation for my debut,” the two snorted immediately after the words had left his lips. 

“I’m sure they’re in shambles trying to figure out why they’re too hyped up to sleep at night,” The siblings laughed, Susan’s form entering before she walked over to stand in front of him. Dusting the lint off the uniform, her brow furrowing, the opposite of her melancholy smile.

“Whenever we do suit up next, promise me one thing,” She requested, “Don’t over do it, and trust us to have your back,”

“I already do,” It wasn’t a lie but it wasn’t the whole truth either, Johnny knew they’d do anything in their power to protect him; He just didn’t trust them to save themselves from him.

* * *

“How are the powers treating you?” Everett handed over a new box of matches with a simple red cover, “Sorry I couldn’t find anything with a nice sleeve, matchbooks aren’t exactly that easy to come by in this day of age,”

“Thank you, and don’t worry about it,” Johnny smiled, running his finger over the tough cardboard, a small part of himself wanting to test something. Placing his thumb on the red sleeve, Johnny burned the grooves of his fingerprint onto the sleeve, marking it as clearly as a stamp on paper.

“Impressive,” Johnny couldn’t help but appreciate the absolute lack of fear or trepidation, and not the caution his family had displayed whenever he’d done the smallest act of combustion. They’d been intrigued and a little awed but they were still heedful.

“Fire doesn’t scare you?” Johnny couldn’t help but ask, his nail running through the embedded grooves in the cardboard. 

“No, there’s more destructive things on this earth than fire. We live in a world with heroes and villains, a world where half of existence vanished with a snap of a madman’s fingers. I’ve seen so much and for all the bad things the fondest memories I have were of campfires and fireplaces burning,”

“I feel like every time we talk we’re talking about me, what’s been going on with you and your friend Shuri?”

A breath huffed out of Everett at the question, a smile on his lips, “She’s finally talking with her brother, it took some convincing but I finally got to her. And for me work hasn’t been any different than usual, still a few odd looks sent my way but I’ve been...is coasting the word I’m looking for? Shuri tries to show me all this slang and I still have no idea what they mean,”

The laugh that erupted out of Johnny startled them both, mainly because the confines of the car were echoing with laughter and Johnny’s hair lit for a second, luckily not burning the car's upholstery. 

“Oh thank god, I wouldn’t know what to do if I burnt your car,” The sigh of relief the teen let out didn’t match the soft chuckle out of Everett’s mouth.

“Things can be replaced,” Throughout his life Johnny had only heard those words in distracted dismissal, this would be the first time they were genuine. 

“I think you have something on your mind,” Ross murmured after a few seconds of silence, parking the car in an empty lot in front of a drive in burger joint. 

“I guess I’m just worried about my first debut,” Johnny admitted, lowering his window as a waitress on roller skates rolled up to his window, handing two menus over before gesturing to the call box.

“Just push the red button when you’re ready,” the teen handed a menu over to Everett and began to scan for his order while also using the distraction not to look at the man.

“It sounds as if you’re more afraid of your powers than you are of actually fighting crime,” Everett seemed to find something suitable on the menu because he put it in his lap and turned to face him.

“I really do want to help people, I’m afraid my powers aren't meant for that. What if I hurt someone? What if I hurt my family?” The teen looked to the man for an answer, desperate.

“Johnny, if you want to help people you will. In all my years I’ve seen heroes afraid of what they’re capable of. That feeling doesn’t go away and it probably never will, but I've never seen it stop them. And I’ll be here in case you think it’ll stop you,” the words bristled out of the man’s lips easily, his face then softening.

“It’s often the things we do to avoid fear that hurt us more than the thing we are afraid of,” 

Johnny thought of how his uncertainty and fear had his flames rising as of late, fear had been making his control slip. Lost in thought the teen missed as Everett placed their orders, able to make out Johnny’s since the boy’s finger hadn’t left his order before handing the menus to the waitress.

She returned not long after with the drinks which Johnny accepted still awfully dazed. The clink of Everett toasting their glasses is what brought him back to the moment.

“To the Human Torch,” 

“The Human Torch?”

“You don’t like it? I thought it was rather clever,”

“I love it,”

* * *

Victor’s mask reflected the screens in front of him, steel colored orange as he watched his new nemesis’s brother in law transform. A phoenix. The Doctor had been in awe, the mere power that the boy had displayed had taken his breath away.

It didn’t even matter that he had to rebuild his bots, the experience of watching behind a plethora of screens as his creations fell apart, the temperature gauges rising to scorching levels, he’d been invigorated.

This blazing teen may not be the picture of intelligence he wanted to face but his power alone made him a worthy adversary. That’s not what he’d use him for though. The pieces were all coming together and Victor revelled in it.

He could widdle down the flames, drown such power until the teen was broken and snuffed back into ashes. With the strongest member gone the other three would be helpless, _ Reed would be helpless. _

If he took the boy, the rest of the team would fall.

* * *

“Everett called me ‘The Human Torch’,” The four were eating dinner, something hefty and filling that Ben had cooked up. He was always the best suited for making the meals, Sue could make some food but it never had any real taste.  Reed had to have clear instructions or it’d end up inedible, and Johnny could but they didn’t trust him with the oven after the last time he tried turning up the heat to cook the turkey faster and ended up setting it on fire.

“Fitting,” Reed hummed through an impromptu smile, shifting back through his meal, mind not fully present. The doctor had been lost in his thoughts for days, this mystery man Doctor Doom demanding his attention. 

The more days that’d gone by the more the three could see that Reed was angry. After he’d recovered and they accepted Johnny onto the team, anger had been eating him alive. His family had been hurt, nearly killed, and the man would be back to do it again.

Reed knew that was what villians did and Doctor Doom wouldn’t be the first he would be facing while consulting. It could have been because Doom was the first, or even because this man had been watching before they’d even gotten their powers that caught his attention.

He could tell Doom had some personal motive in the attack, it could have been because of the stones but it wasn’t hard to see there was something more to it. Reed just didn’t know what.

“I guess that makes us real heroes then,” Ben chewed out through his meal, “Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch, and The Thing.”

“For some reason Reed seems to have scored the best name,” Susan chuckled, reaching her hand out and resting it on the back of her husband's neck, messaging the tenseness residing there. 

“I think Ben’s the only one who got the short end of the stick,” Johnny chuckled, rather liking his own hero name. A gruff noise came out of the older man but he didn’t seem bothered.

“I’m just glad they stopped calling me the Invisible Girl,” Sue admitted, her fingers running over her husband's spine while Reed leaned back against her touch. 

“They see your youth,” Reed complimented, seemingly coming out of his worry if only for a few seconds. It earned him a kiss on the temple and Susan moving to take his plate as she cleaned up. 

“We’ll catch him,” Ben suddenly spoke up, earning the team's attention, mainly Reed’s.

“Yeah, yeah we will,” Reed confirmed, head turning towards his wife who was giving him a gentle smile that he eagerly returned.

* * *

“It’s your last day here and you’re still not in class,” Mrs. Magladale chuckled, a little upset she wouldn’t have her favorite student around any longer but happy the boy would no longer be attending this godforsaken school.

“As if I’d ever go,” Johnny leaned back, a hand over his chest in mock horror at the mere suggestion of him ever attending class.

“I’m sure you’ll learn a lot from your brother-in-law and sister, more than you’d ever learn here,” The nurse cooed, refilling her bandage containers and Q-tip jar.

“You’re right about that,” He concluded, picking up his backpack and pulling out the gifts he’d bought for the woman who’d done so much for him. It was three different extensive kits, one for knitting, another for watercolor, and finally one for perler beads. 

She had plenty of crafts around her office and some he’d heard her talk about on many different occasions so he figured those were the right way to go when picking out her gifts. 

“I got these for you since I can’t exactly come bother you here at school anymore,” The teen handed the kits over, an empty feeling filling his chest. He’d miss her cramped office, her attitude, and her special motherly love for him.

“Oh Johnny dear these are lovely,” her manicured fingers ran over the boxes designs before setting them on the counter and pulling the teen in for a hug. 

“Thank you, and don’t you dare think you can get away with not visiting me! Even if you have to come to my very own home, I will be seeing you again,” Mrs. Magladale patted his back and Johnny chuckled and nodded.

“You did say you were going to teach me how to do that sand art,” The teen murmured, detaching as she quickly shook her head.

“That may be too advanced for you Johnny, I have some ceramics you can paint for me instead,” She likely wasn’t joking but he didn’t really mind, it sounded nice regardless. 

“That works for me,” Johnny slipped his fingerprinted matchbook from his pocket, running his nail against the grooves, foot tapping with the clock’s ticking. Five more minutes and he was free from Glenville High, free from being bullied and shoved by Mike Snow. 

“This wouldn’t be a normal day if I didn’t let you leave early,” Opening the window, the nurse sent a soft smile his way.

“And whatever has been going on at home...and with your family...if you plan to do the same. Be careful,” Of course she’d noticed who the Fantastic Three was, and it wasn’t hard to speculate he may be gifted too. 

In a split second decision, Johnny moved out of sight from the window and let the flames erupt over his waving hand.

“I will be,” creeping out of the window to her astonished face, Johnny slipped through his usual spot in the fence and headed back over to the empty lot he’d claimed as his own. The bonfire he made was as tall as him and he watched the flames flicker the same way others would when he finally went out to battle. 

* * *

Passerby’s cheered in excitement as the Fantastic Four arrived on the scene, Johnny could hear the reporters speculating and gasping about the new development. Johnny sent a cocky grin at the crowd as he helped round up some loose arms dealers who’s heist had gone wrong.  Considering they’d crashed several cars, gotten chased out of their deal and into the public, all of the Fantastic Four knew they weren’t dealing with the classiest of villains. Johnny figured he was on the defensive rather than the offensive.

Reed seemed to be doing most of the rounding up while The Thing stacked cars to block the dealers exits. Susan kept watch over those they had caught since she stopped their attempts to escape before they could get very far.

The most Johnny had done so far was create a wall of fire which immediately stopped the crooks in their tracks, allowing Reed to act as a human rope so the cops could put the men in cuffs.

“Excuse me! Excuse me!” A reporter called out to him, her brown hair falling down to her hips, eyelashes fluttering and lips pursed.

“Hello,” The teen grinned, alert and all too aware of everything going on around them.

“And what do we call you flame boy?” The reporter purred, her eyes opening wide and sparkling in the light. 

“The Human Torch,” Confidence was laced in his tone, the name having the crowds cheering but the reporter only giggled.

“Your hands must be the torches then,”

Johnny took a few steps back, shrugging his shoulders before bursting fully into flames making the crowds roar, “Not just my hands, it’s all of me,”

“I love you Human Torch!”

“Have my babies!” 

“The Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four,” the chant rang out in unison and Johnny could see his family’s faces lighting gently with smiles. He could get used to this.

* * *

“I think all that cheering got to his head,” Reed smiled as he said the words, happier than he’d been in a while at the sight of Johnny beaming in his own version of nirvana.

“What doesn’t?” Ben harrumphed, the two men watching as Johnny bounced on his feet, seemingly lighter than air as he scurried over to the couch to turn on the news.

“Let him have his moment,” Sue watched her brother's excitement fondly, his good mood increasing her own. The three watched the teen for a few more moments until Susan took her husband's hand, dragging him away for reasons Ben knew not to speculate.

* * *

The fire alarms went off in the middle of the night, riling up the heroes and sending them running down the hall to Johnny’s room. Of course they could have checked the kitchen or maybe even the lab first, but now that they really took in that they lived with a sixteen year old who couldn’t exactly control his flames? Yeah, it didn’t seem unreasonable for them to check in on Johnny first.

Ben’s skin threatened to erupt in what now he referred to as hives as he knocked into the kid’s door when he couldn’t bring his momentum to a stop. Both Susan and Reed nearly crashed into his back if it wasn’t for Sue manifesting a quick field to catch them.

The entirety of his hand took up the doorknob as he tried to open it, “Fuck!” he ground out, the handle hot, confirming their suspicions that the fire was in Johnny’s room. 

“Johnny!” Sue shouted frantically, the fact that Johnny was fire retardant and immune to smoke inhalation had swept itself under the rug, right now her little brother was behind a locked door with smoke crawling out under it.

Reed acting quickly stretching his palm underneath the door and upwards toward the handle, unlocking it before his appendage made his way back to his side and Ben rushed in headfirst, transforming so the flames didn’t consume him.

The full bed was bereft of its owner, its occupant a mass of flames deteriorating the sheets and headboard. Ben acted first in grabbing the flaming sheet by the corner, shaking it and smothering it until the flames died down.

Susan surrounded the headboard with a shield, it’d need to be replaced but at least it was no longer lit. 

“He took him,” broke through the silence, Reed’s voice wavering as he faced the window, his stretched hand holding the curtain open to reveal a perfectly cut hole in the glass. Ben snarled, Susan screamed, and Reed gaped.

* * *

Flesh tore, swirling and grating, bone splintering, and powdering the air as the nails fastened the teen to the table beneath him. They’d gone through his skin, hips, and out his back and all the way through the bottom of the table, fasteners at the bottom and top, discouraging any attempt of bucking for freedom.

His arms had been pulled from their sockets, held tight above his head by a contraption Doom had thrown together in a matter of minutes. The teen’s wrist were effectively tied, the main wire going up and around his fingers, the ends of the wire pressing underneath his nails. To alleviate the pressure on the wrist he could curl his fingers but then he’d suffer driving the needles further under his cuticles.

Insulation wool kept the pyro’s ankles down, a blessing but there really had been no need to hold him down by the ankles. The screws in his body were enough.

“It’s nice to meet you Mr. Storm,” Even while delirious with pain Johnny could tell that the augmented voice would be one that stayed with him. It nearly seemed as iconic as Darth Vader or Batman, the new one not the Nolan one.

“Fuck off,” Johnny rasped easily, unthinkingly, blind to nothing but pain. For his curse, Doom shoved a needle into the boy’s neck less than gently. The shere length of it kept the boy still in fear of causing himself more harm.

“Ah yes, it’d been so easy to forget you were just a child when you decimated my bots,” Doom’s covered hands planted themselves on the table on both sides of the boy’s body, looming.

Now that Johnny got a real good look at the mysterious Doctor Doom, he wasn’t impressed. He seemed almost too textbook comic villain with the green hood and metallic cowl, the bastard was even wearing a cape. 

“My fami-” The pyro started, only to be cut off when one of the man’s hands slammed back down onto the table, jostling his body, pinching his wrist with wire, his body acting on impulse by curling his fingers and hissing when it only ended in more pain.

“Yes, let’s talk about your family Mr. Storm. You saw them in that fight, they're worthless without you. It took you less than a minute to end my assault while they floundered. You could have taken them out too. What a wonderful weapon you are,”

Fury ignited the teen in seconds, flames roaring within, the only difference this time it burned. 

“You feel it? You feel what they’d feel if you destroyed them? If you tried harder maybe you could burn through Ben too, I’m sure you could. Fire’s rather unpredictable, it’s possible you’ll never learn to control it. Every nightmare or minor fright could send you up in flames and hundreds may die. What will you do with the ashes of your dear sister and brother? Or will their ashes wither by your hand too?”

“No!” Johnny screamed, anguished and on fire, wrist bleeding along with his fingers, several nails having even popped off at the pressure.

“You’re a dangerous man Johnny Storm, a human torch indeed,”

* * *

The Fantastic three didn’t need to go out of their way to look for the teen, not when Doctor Doom sent them a clear address. He’d done exactly what he wanted to do.

**Author's Note:**

> snap: allisonw1122  
> tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> insta: webtrinsic


End file.
